


Stay

by kelp_maxine



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Flash Fic, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:20:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelp_maxine/pseuds/kelp_maxine
Summary: I haven't written fanfic since middle school but I couldn't help myself this time
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	Stay

There were no cries let out, no hands thrown through the air in defense when Catra woke up. Those had stopped a while ago. Instead, she just jolted upright, the blanket slipping off from her and piling above her feet. This is not the first time she woke up like this. It was, to her frustration, becoming a nightly occurrence. Whether it kept happening as an escape from bad dreams, or out of fear for good ones, she did not know. It didn’t matter much to her. She was dealing with it.

Beside her, with her back curled against the folds of the mattress, lay Adora. The steady rise and fall of her chest was undisturbed by Catra’s awakening, as was the slow series of snores that she was letting out. This is something that, on a good night, would have been pleasantly reassuring, and on a bad night, would have reminded Catra of the rumbling of distant engines, distant motors, distant weapons. But tonight wasn’t a good night or a bad night, it was just a night, and Catra had just woken up. She shook the sleep from her eyes. She sat up, slowly, and pressed her palms against her forehead, rubbing the soreness out from her brain. She took a few calming breaths. After a moment to adjust, she slid the covers off from herself and then lowered her bare feet to the soft carpet of the floor, an amenity of Brightmoon that she had still to get used to. The touch of the cold in the room that met her as she pulled herself up sent a small shiver through her body, and immediately she missed the warmth of the bed. The warmth of Adora.

She excused herself from the room, stepping over several piles of ruffled red jackets that lay strewn about the floor. This dirty laundry was something that no matter how many times she rolled her eyes over, she couldn’t find the resolve to chastise Adora for. Just a few more months together, and then, then she promised herself she would nag. But just for now, she wanted to live as if there was nothing imperfect, nothing at all that she would change. Because there wasn’t. But the memories of the past still clung to her like water refusing to be wrung from cloth. She felt it all the time, but here, especially, in the darkened corridors of the palace, she felt it strongest. On her way to the bathroom, she tightened her fist as she was made small beneath the pink walls that rose around her, their bright colors made dull by the cloak of the evening. This is not a feeling that she liked. The weight of it pressed down onto her, the pressure of it squeezing her shoulders inwards, buckling her bones from within. But she pressed on, trying to push out the feeling, trying to find some kind of calm.

Soon, she passed a guard who worked the night shift, and her warm face smiled out from behind her helm. They had grown somewhat close, if only through the polite nods they exchanged every night that Catra awoke like this. After turning a corner, she made her way to the bathroom--not her bathroom, not the one in their room. She didn’t want to wake Adora, didn’t want to make her worry. They had done enough, been through enough, that the last thing she needed was to be the one to make her lose sleep. In this other bathroom, Catra flicked the light on, the sudden change in brightness making her wince. She turned on the faucet, the water spinning out from the tap in calm and consistent streams, and then she brought it to her face with her hands. She also took a few sips, appeasing the midnight thirst that accompanied her. After a few moments, Catra turned her gaze upward into the mirror. She wasn’t aware of herself bringing her hands to her face, to her hair, which had grown slightly in these past months. But in the reflection, there she was, gently prodding herself, almost as if to check if she were real. She was real enough, she decided, and then she left the room.

On the way back to bed, Catra flinched at the shadows. The dim light that came from the hall's lanterns were not enough to fight back the darkness that clung to the edges of the corridor. These shadows twisted around her, and with it came memories, ones that felt distant, and yet also still close. She saw a masked and berobed shape passing at an intersection. She felt the many green eyes of something watching her from behind. She saw her own shadow cast against the wall, but it was distorted, monstrous, giddy even, as its form stretched and grew and cackled. Catra clenched her fists and kept moving. This was not the first time she saw such things, and it would not be the last. But she knew how to push them out, how to shift what she focused on. And so she did just that. She focused on the one thing that has kept her calm and happy and warm through it all. And soon, she was in the room with her again.

Catra closed the door behind her slowly, careful not to wake Adora. She traced her way back across the room, stepping over the same mishandled laundry that she had stepped over before. She plucked the sheet, which Adora had since thrown onto the ground in what must have been a very chaotic readjustment, and then draped it back over her, tucking the corners in around her feet and shoulders so that she would not do the same again. And then Catra lifted the blanket and slid herself beside her love. As she did this, as the warmth of her body reentered the warmth of the bed, a pleasant sensation that softened the prickles that had grown on the back of her neck. Adora, sensing her presence returning, shifted from her right side to her left. She wrapped her arm around Catra’s waist, gently, and with care, and then pushed her face into the nook of her shoulder.

“Stay.” She said, her voice laced with sleep.

Catra’s eyes widened, and then softened, and then closed. And then she smiled, and it was a good smile, a calm smile, a content smile. She ran her cheek across Adora’s, not noticing the purring that had begun to spill from her throat, and then she stayed.


End file.
